Barry Gibb and the Bee Gees

Sydney

From left: Brothers Maurice Gibb, Robin Gibb and Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees perform live on stage in Sydney, New South Wales, November 7, 1989.

At 67, Barry Gibb is the only surviving member
of one of the 20th century's greatest vocal groups. And now - two years after the death of his brother Robin, and 11 years after Maurice Gibb died - the last of the Bee Gees is undertaking his first-ever solo tour.

By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan

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Florida

Barry Gibb's wife, Linda, played a big role
in coaxing the singer back on tour: "Well, I was fed up with him sitting on his
ass!" she told correspondent Anthony Mason. "He was miserable. I think after Maurice died he
kind of went into a bit of a depression and he just moped around."

But Barry told Mason that it was important for him to go back on stage. "Yeah, yeah. It's everything to me. It's all I've ever known. I don't know how to do anything else. I can't get a job!"

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Brothers

The three oldest Gibb boys started singing together as kids in England. When the family emigrated to Australia in 1958, the brothers got a record deal and a TV show.

From left: Brothers Barry Gibb, age 12, and 9-year-old twins Robin Gibb and Maurice Gibb, pictured in Brisbane, Queensland, after rocking the radio and record world with a private recording of a "rockabilly" song which they wrote themselves.

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Hootenanny

An undated photo of the Bee Gees.

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Barry Gibb

A photo of Barry Gibb, age 18, in 1964.

Gibb told Mason, "I remember saying to one of my
first girlfriends at 14 years old that if she dumped me she was making a
mistake 'cause I was going to be famous. I actually said that, you know?"

"But more importantly you believed
it."

"I believed it, yeah," said Barry.
"And I don't know why."

The Bee Gees would eventually record 15 No. 1 hits, and sell more than 120 million records worldwide.

The Gibb Family

The Bee Gees

A photo of the Bee Gees - Robin Gibb, Barry Gibb and Maurice Gibb - taken in Australia in 1964.

Credit: GAB Archive/Redferns

The Bee Gees

The Bee Gees in 1964.

Although the brothers had found success in Australia at a very young age, they wanted a bigger stage.

"We knew that to reach the rest of the world, we had to be either in the States or London," Robin Gibb told CBS News in 2009. "We had to be where the action was."

So in 1967 they boarded a ship back to England.

Credit: GAB Archive/Redferns

The Bee Gees

The Bee Gees in 1969.

Credit: Atco Records

The Bee Gees

Joining Barry, Maurice and Robin as part of the Bee Gees in the late 1960s were drummer Colin Petersen (second from right) and guitarist Vince Melouney (far right). Petersen was later replaced on drums by Geoff Bridgford.

Credit: Atlantic Records

The Bee Gees

The Bee Gees in 1968.

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Albums

Just a handful of the 22 studio albums released by the Bee Gees between 1965 and 2001.

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"Top of the Pops"

The Bee Gees perform on the British TV series, "Top of the Pops," in London, March 6, 1969, From left: Barry Gibb and Robin Gibb.

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The Bee Gees

A photo, c. 1970, of the Bee Gees.

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The Bee Gees

A photo, c.1970, of the Bee Gees.

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The Bee Gees

A 1975 photo of Maurice, Barry and Robin Gibb.

Credit: GAB Archive/Redferns

"Saturday Night Fever"

The Bee Gees' soundtrack album for the film "Saturday Night Fever" (1977) was a monster hit, selling 40 million copies. It resided on the Billboard album charts for nearly 2.5 years.

The album won the Bee Gees five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Arrangement Of Voices (for "Stayin' Alive"), Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Group (for "How Deep Is Your Love"), and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo Or Group (for "Saturday Night Fever").

Credit: RSO

Madison Square Garden

By April 1978, the Bee Gees had written 5 of the top 10 songs on the charts. Not since the Beatles had one band so dominated the airwaves:

"Yes, we were extremely overexposed!" Barry Gibb said in 2009. "But it's the truth. You know, we were having too much success. In fact, we had three in the top 5 in Billboard, not just five in the top 10. And it was just too much."

And when the disco backlash hit, the Bee Gees became the punching bag. So the brothers retreated, writing hits for other artists, like Barbra Streisand ("Guilty"), Dionne Warwick ("Heartbreaker"), and Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton ("Islands in the Stream").

Credit: Steve Morley/Redferns

Andy Gibb

A portrait dated 1978 of musician Andy Gibb.

Andy had formed his own group and in the late 1970s recorded three Number 1 singles - "I Just Want to Be Your Everything," "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water," and "Shadow Dancing" - and co-hosted the TV series "Solid Gold." But drug problems and depression led to his early death in 1988, at age 30.

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The Bee Gees

In 2003, Maurice Gibb died suddenly from a tangled intestine at age 53. "He was absolutely fine one day, and 48 hours later he was dead," said Barry.

Barry and Robin admitted to Mason that Maurice's death divided them: "We just were unable to communicate with each other," Barry said.

"I think we got afraid of each other," Robin said. "I don't know what it was."

Although the two would regroup to write music together, Robin died in 2012 of cancer.

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Philadelphia

The last surviving member of the Bee Gees, Barry Gibb, performs during his limited six-show "Mythology: The Tour Live," at Wells Fargo Center on May 19, 2014 in Philadelphia, Pa.

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Boston

According to Barry's son, Stephen (who joined him on the tour), his father felt the risk of going back out solo. "He's a 67-year-old pop icon, or whatever you wanna call him," Stephen told Anthony Mason. "And he's like, 'Do people care still? And will people still wanna hear it?' And I made it my job to tell him as often as I could, 'Believe me, they really wanna hear it. You gotta get out there.'"

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Boston

Barry Gibb is joined on the tour by Maurice's daughter, Samantha. Together they sing, "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?"

"I'll walk off after a moment of doing 'How Can You Mend,' and I'll cry, you know?" she said. "But I'm happy. It's actually because we're looking at each other and we're both, like, healing. And we're grieving when we sing to each other.

"We both struggled after my Dad died, too," she continued, tearing up. "So it was a great way to connect."

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Boston

Barry Gibb told Mason that the absence of his brothers never goes away. "I don't know why I'm the only one left. I'll never be able to explain that. And I'll always have great joyful memories."

Being the last Bee Gee, he said, felt "like a rebirth. And great therapy. Great therapy. And you just feel alive. You feel really alive. And it's about seizing that now."